Remind me that I wrote this when I whine in the winter

I don't like any temperature over 25 degrees Celsius... I've started resenting and avoiding the sun. We've had a heat wave on and off since basically the beginning of July and it got me thinking "maybe I wouldn't be able to handle living in California after all".
You know how snowbirds go down to Florida in the winter to avoid the cold? Maybe I'd be the lone Canadian living in California who hiked it up on home to Canada in the summer to avoid the heat! Yes, I could do that...
But really, I'm also wondering how I would have survived had my parents never immigrated to Canada... Me. In Egypt. In the summer....
I have become completely useless. Beyond sitting on the couch, my activities range to shifting on the couch because the spot I'm on is too hot, slinking down to the floor, and sitting on the chair. Also, adjusting the AC or the fan... And dreaming about lemonade. Or ice cream...
Every night, I check the forecast for the next day and cry silently in my head if the high is over 27, or if there's humidity... I can't wait for fall. Yes, I am definitely abnormal.

Snuggie Temptation...

When I sit down to watch tv or a movie, I like a blanket to keep me warm, especially if I'm tired or sleep-deprived. So when the snuggie came out last year, I have to admit that I was very very tempted to get one.
Have you seen the commercials? Insanely corny and ridiculous:



Better yet, have you seen the spoofs:


They should be a total reason not to get the thing, right? But I actually want it even more now... I mean, a blanket with sleeves - how awesome is that? and I love tv or commercials that fall into the "so bad they're good" category. Don't get me wrong, if I buy the thing, I won't be out and about in public with it, or wear it on an airplane like in the commercial (sorry, too embarrassing), but something for the couch or the desk sounds good...
Thus far, I haven't caved, but the moment may come soon. I'll keep you posted.

4 Umbrellas Later

I don't think I've mentioned here yet that I've started working out of the Montreal office more and more. I still go to Ottawa for work, but not as often, and since the Montreal office is so wonderfully close to our place, I actually walk to and from work now when I'm here.
Now, I love everything about this new arrangement except for one little detail:
I am notorious for forgetting my umbrella at home. No, scratch that. I bring my umbrella, I just bring it on the days it's not raining. I can carry it for a week to and from work and that week the clouds will not shed a drop. Then I'll forget it and before I head home that afternoon, I'll look out the window and it'll be pouring away. So, I'll go into the Pharmaprix in the plaza downstairs and buy an umbrella - and use it that day before the cycle begins again.
I don't dare get up and count the number of umbrellas M and I have at home, but my guess is that the number is around 7 or 8- and we're two (2!) people. And I'm pretty sure 4 of those were purchased in the last month. By me.
Case in point: yesterday I checked the weather - no rain expected on Monday, but rain expected today. No worries, I would take my brolly today.
And then today happened, and while I was packing my lunch, I remembered that I need the umbrella, but by the time I was done, I'd totally forgotten. and then it wasn't raining in the morning, so I didn't notice when I left the building.
Then, this afternoon as I was heading back from work, I left the office and it was dripping. I walked 100 feet, turned around and went back inside to the Pharmaprix to buy yet ANOTHER umbrella. And then I walked the rest of the way to my errand, did my errand, and walked home without needing it at all. The moment I had the umbrella, the rain stopped. Go figure.

I want my hour back!

This weekend, we turned the clocks forward to daylight savings time, and while we won't have to deal with the sun setting until nearly 7 p.m., the downside is that I suddenly feel so behind.
Daylight savings time (DST) used to happen on the first Sunday in April, and all through university, this hour-thievery had such an enormous effect because it was always, always, always right around exam time. I felt like the time people were out to make sure I couldn't have just 60 more minutes to figure out a proof, to solve a program that refused to compile, or even to just sleep so that the next day's studying would make some sort of sense...
Two years ago, the U.S. decided to move DST three weeks earlier, and being the good Canadian neighbours we are, we of course followed right along. It was necessary, 6 weeks of time difference (three in the fall when setting clocks back, three in the spring when setting clocks forward) between places like New York and Toronto would have wreaked havoc on the business world, but you wonder why Uncle Sam really thought it was such a good idea to do it anyway...
The theory was that it would save energy, that 3 weeks of extended day light would mean people would turn their lights on later, blah blah blah, yadda yadda, insert more detail...
There is NO way to ever measure whether this worked. What I do know is that at work, we were thrown into a frenzy working on the DST project, making sure all IT infrastructure, systems, and applications were DST ready... It was many hours of overtime for many people. Some did so much OT they bought flat screen TVs with the money after. Others took vacations. (Me, I just did the boring thing and put it in the bank). It was like a mini version of the Y2K freak-out 7 years earlier... We love to have to worry about whether something wrong with the machines can possibly cause the whole world to end.
In hindsight, I look back fondly at the DST project as the first really technical, large scale project I worked on. But I still got up this morning and realized that instead of the 9:50 blinking on my clock, the time was 10:50. And I still feel groggy while I write this. And I still feel, well, honestly? A little jipped.

That Kind of Day

We're Canadians, so the snow should really, really not be an issue. And it wouldn't be except there's so darn much of it! More than I remember getting in the past - which is probably my mind playing tricks on me, considering last year we almost broke the record for snowiest winter, and that my childhood memories are filled with sliding (sometimes head first) down the HUGE hills in the school yard where the snow piled up all winter until it was well over 2 meters high (also, chanting "I'm the king of the castle! and you're the dirty rascals!" from the top of the hill after climbing it - oh children, so charming).
Perhaps it's that in my childhood, all this snow meant just another plaything - a hill to be climbed, an evening tobogganing, a snowball fight to be had, angels and forts to be made. Now, it's all just something to walk around. Or rather, to try to walk around (come check out the great job they do clearing this stuff in the fabulous frozen metropolis that is Montreal, and you'll know exactly what I mean).
Yesterday, on the way home from Ottawa, one of my fellow commuters got off the bus at Kirkland as he always does. As he walked down the hill to the parking lot where his car was parked, he fell 3 feet into the snow. Waist deep. The bus was driving away as he rolled himself out. yeah.
I think maybe I just need to take up tobogganing again.

Sniffling and Yucky

I can't think of very much more un-fun than going to the dentist when you can't breathe through your nose... Wish me luck!

A Daddy's (and Momma's) Girl...

Nothing quite like coming back from 7 weeks in the Middle East to the first snow... and not a light snow either; they're expecting 10-15 centimeters by the time it's all over tomorrow morning.
My parents, however, are not daunted by the prospect, and are happy to be home despite the dubious welcome.
And I am sooooooooooooooooo happy to have them back. Welcome home!

Catching Up

I, too, have succumbed.

It's like my willpower was only as strong as the self-control of those around me. I always swore I wouldn't get on Facebook, that I wasted more than my fair share of time on the Internet as it was. I even had allies in the resistance. And then the unthinkable happened:
I found out that my kid sister had signed on. Then...
I found out M had signed on (Gasp. Cough. I could hardly breathe!)

I lasted a week after that point. And now, I, too, have a Facebook account. But believe it or not, Facebook is not responsible for my temporary lapse in posting on this blog. No, that has more to do with the general blogapathy that seems to have taken over the blogosphere... That and general beautiful weather in Montreal for a few days, followed by my sudden panic that the summer is about to disappear and so I have to take advantage of what's left of the fabulous weather.
As if to prove my point, the fire alarm went off at work today and we all FROZE in the 10 or so minutes we ended up standing outside, every one of us missing our pullovers/sweaters/light jackets that we'd left at home/on a hanger in our office... Anyway, I digress, back to Facebook:

In my first log in after signing up, I spent about 1 hour surfing to find some friends and rooting around other's pages. But the real kicker, the part that made my new "facebooker" status all worth it, happened a few days later, when I had an impromptu chat with a great friend who's been in Japan for over a year teaching English. There I was, on my bed in my old room in Ottawa, while she was typing away at a desk (in the staff room?) at her school in Japan, and we were writing as though we were talking. It was our first true conversation since we spoke the night before my wedding. Catching up is soooooooooooooooo delightful, and that, alone, was worth the sign-up.

Camp

Too exhausted to write a detailed or comprehensive post that may actually make sense about camp, so instead, I'm just putting down some random thoughts. Camp was awesome (it always is):

• Hours of sleep I got from Friday to Sunday night: 5
• Old friends from Ottawa I got to hang out with: 4
• Number of slices of banana bread I ate when I broke down on Sunday: 6 (but they were small!)
• Times I cried: 3
• Number of marshmallows I ate around the campfire: 6
• Number of campers: 140+
• Hours we drove from Montreal to get to the campsite: 2
• Buses needed to get Montreal campers there: 2
• Mosquito bites I am now covered in: Too many. I'll have to spend the next three hours counting and get back to you.
• Little sun-burny rash spots I have on my face because I forgot to apply sunscreen most of the time I was outside: A LOT
• Number of canoes that tipped in the water when the girls went swimming: 1 for sure, and I suspect a second but not actually sure.
• Chocolate consumed over the weekend: none - unless you count Nuttela, which I shouldn't have spread on my bread, but did anyway
• Coffee consumed: Not enough - 3 cups
• Tea consumed: Not enough - 1 cup
• Cell phone reception to the outside world from the campsite: None
• Number of unclaimed items going into the lost and found at the MAC Montreal Mosque from the end of camp: 3 (a towel, a sleeping bag, and a pillow)

And some of my favourite photos ...

Once it's gone, is it gone forever?

All my life, I've had very strong vocal chords. I would get a cold, get a flu, whatever, and even with a sore or scratchy throat, I would still have a very strong voice (which, if you know me, you know I've always put to good use by talking!) Until the ripe old age of 23, I never lost my voice. And then came my trip to Egypt for my baby sister's wedding. and sleeping with the AC cranked WAY up in the hotel the night before in a room I was sharing with my cousin and her adorable 4 year old. I woke up in the morning with the equivalent of a mid-February head and chest cold in late June. By the next morning, I had officially lost my voice from talking over the music / singing along with the music at the wedding the night before. And when it was gone, it was gone!
For close to three weeks, I coughed and hacked, and could barely whisper. When my voice came back, it came back in some other form, and for a while, I sounded like a stuffy old man and worried I would never hear myself as I sounded again.
Well, my voice came back at long last, but I think I can safely say that it never came back as strong and stubborn as it used to be. Oh, don't get me wrong: when things are good, I still sound like the "old me". But the difference is that now, I'm much more prone to losing my voice, and by much more prone, I mean that before, it happened "never" and now it's come very close to happening twice.
Last July, before M and I's Katb Kitab, I was on the verge of losing it, and this week, in recovering from that nasty Seattle cold that came back with M from the conference last Thursday, I've been hacking and coughing ALL the time. This despite the fact that I'm otherwise significantly improved, and that I drink ginger tea like it's water, and consume honey like it's air...
One of my best friends, Katherine, loses her voice all the time when she gets a cold, and I remember always finding it funny. Well, Katherine, I ain't laughing anymore. I believe you now, and I know what you mean.
Pass the ginger tea!

Pass the Purell

M went to Seattle last week, and along with bringing back a really cool travel mug with a pic of the space needle on it, and a nice little bag from the conference he went to, he brought back the fiercest cold I've had in years. Everywhere I go, I leave garbage cans full of used tissue. In light of this situation, I'd like to bring your attention back to the home remedies I posted last summer about great home remedies for colds.
I wanted to add one last remedy to the list:

• Onion cores. This stuff is absolutely fantastic, if a little hard to swallow. Chop up the core of the onion, drench it in vinegar, and a little salt and pepper, and then eat it raw with some bread. This really helps with the sinus congestion.

Good luck with any colds you might all be suffering. The weather really is not helping.

Where are the words?

I've always been better at writing it down than saying it but
today, I can't do either
can't find the words to put to paper to screen to mind to ear to dream
because each time I dream the words I find myself looking for a way to forget
them to replace them
with easier words
like 11 degrees and sun
like 1st place like water like rain slush spring
all happy words while parting is a sad one
and the word that I try to forget becomes a sentence a page a book
and my eyes are half open half closed and my brain is lost somewhere
between waking and sleep
hoping and dreading -remembering
and forgetting

I've always been better at writing it down than saying it but
today
I can't write or say or think

Snow snow snow

I was so proud of myself for being able to deal with the cold during my first three days back in Canada last week, and then.... Wednesday happened. On Wednesday, I waited outside my parents' house in Ottawa at the bus stop 40 minutes with cold wind pushing blowing snow straight at me, before an almost-totally-full-bus finally came by to take me to work. Welcome home, right?
We're supposed to be having another storm today and tomorrow, and in Montreal, we're fairly close to breaking the record for the city's snowiest winter. At least I get the same weather regardless of which city I happen to be in.
I took this photo a few days before leaving for Egypt.


In other news, I returned from Egypt to find Les Boys on the verge of becoming 1st in the conference, and now they are. As I'm mentioned previously, Bob Gainey is a genius. As a Habs' fan, I'm sitting back and enjoying...

38 cm

and counting...
at 8 p.m. there were 38 centimetres of snow on the ground in Ottawa. Beautiful to look at, but not so much fun to walk through, let me tell you. When I opened my door this morning, the snow fell IN to my entrance. Brrrr...

'Tis the Season...

To be congested (fa la la lala lala lala - Sing it!) My little angela has a viscious head cold and has managed to share the love with all in the family (parents, grandparents, baby brother, and your's truly - Auntie Noha). This morning I woke up unable to breathe. I'll spare you the details, but winter has definitely arrived. It's 20 below zero (celsius) with the windchill factor in Ottawa today. Winter has MOST definitely arrived.



On the bright side, Les Boys won 4-3 in Shootouts against those poor Toronto Maple Leafs last night, despite being horribly outshot and deserving to lose. I'm starting to really like our rookie goalie (46 shots, and no panicking). but the team needs to play better 5 on 5. Wow, I sound like such an arm chair coach

Insanity

I had a meeting in the building two blocks from my building this morning at work. It was starting to "warm up" so I wore only my sweater over my button up and my trusty Habs scarf around my neck, opting to leave my jacket at the office. On the way I saw several ppl moving supplies off trucks and into some office buildings in SHORTS and T-SHIRTS!!! It was 3 Celsius outside. no warmer. Maybe they thought by dressing down, they would encourage summer to come back??
I don't know, all I know for sure is that just looking at them gave me a cold.

Are we good?

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry for the last week plus of neglect. I know I got your hopes up with constant writing and then kinda just left you hanging with no explanation. I know your number of hits have suffered as a result and there was little you could do without my getting back to it. I guess the following is a series of excuses for my erratic writing behaviour.

• Wedding planning: A couple of months ago, M and I sat down and came up with everything we needed to do, and then saw that we had "so much time" left to do it all and Ramadan was coming up, and in general things were just busy on other fronts so… we let it slide a little. And rightfully so. But now, the wedding is not getting any farther away and the stuff still needs to get done. It's fun, but very very time consuming (and I like to think we're keeping it pretty low-key and I'm not being an insane Bride-zilla, but it's just something that takes A LOT of time)


• I can't wear my hijab because WHAT?: So, lucky for me, I'm a federal government and not a provincial government employee. The Quebec provincial government is considering passing a law to disallow "ostentatious religious symbols" a la France, in public life. So my fellow hijabi's would be told to take off their hijabs or not come to work. Same with Orthodox Jews who cover their heads. Same with Sikhs. Same with Christians wearing crosses. Oh wait, what's that you say? Christians with crosses are welcome to keep wearing them? Well, then, I guess this isn't about keeping society secular after-all… Needless to say, I've very very concerned, upset, hurt about this whole debacle. I'm not sure what's so threatening to Quebec society about little old me in a headscarf, (or any other piece of clothing for that matter) or how it would interfere with my ability to do my job as a public servant, teacher, etc… And whatever happened to a woman's right to choose what she wore? Why doesn't forcing me to take off my hijab equate to oppression the same way forcing someone to wear one would? ... So, I've been trying to let as many ppl know to write their MPP's about it if they live in Quebec, and just generally to spread the word and stay on top of the issue.


• Hockey: Ramadan is over, and the hockey season is young, and for a Habs fan like me who's been starving for good old Canadiens' hockey since that dreaded game last April (which they lost, resulting in their missing the play-offs), the time is NOW to catch up on what Les Boys are up to. So far so good. We have a young team (note the use of "we". I often talk as though I, not Guy Carbonneau, am the coach of the team) and we're still making lots of mistakes, but our young guys are a year more experienced, our overall level of effort is much more consistent than last year, and our newbies (rookies and free agents) are turning out to be an overall improvement over the bunch that left at the end of last year. Overall, I like the class of 2007-2008, though I wish Carbo would stop giving Kostopoulous so much ice time.


• Rain, Baaaaaaah!: Yes, I know this is a lousy excuse, but I'm anti-rain, and when it rains I lose all creative/expressive abilities… and we've been getting a lot of rain lately, so…

I hope these excuses are enough for you to sort of forgive me. I don't really promise I'll be writing all the time any time soon again. And I'm sorry if I mislead you with my little spurt of posting pre-Eid, but time is just gonna continue to be tight for a while… Are we good?

The Official "Summer Being Over" Post

It's so strange seeing kids waiting at bus stops on the way to work this week. Then of course, there's wearing a jacket in the morning in the 9 degree weather, and having to carry it home in the 30 degree weather in the afternoon. Then there's seeing co-workers who've taken the entire 2 months off return, and there's realizing hockey season (and scarf / hat / mitten / wool jacket / boot season) is just around the corner - but hey, we're Canadians, right? We live in one of the most insane climates (when it comes to cold) on the planet, so we might as well embrace it....
but before we do... one last idyllic summer picture.

Cottaging

Off to the world of lake and canoes and kayaks and tennis tomorrow... Wish me good weather. See you in 10 days, Blogger!

To part, here's a pic from Montreal's Old Port to tide you over.

Head Case...

Nothing quite as fun as getting a classic Ottawa-winter head cold with all the trimmings in the middle of a semi-heat wave in July. My body wants iced tea and lemonade, but my throat is screaming for hot ginger with honey. Is it hot? Is it cold? I can't tell anymore... I wear sweaters inside our air-conditioned building and then step outside for a second and WHAM, the stagnant, humid air hits me and I want to go for a swim... (There's one of those outdoor fountains near my bus stop. I swear, one of those days when the humidity is just too much, you'll probably find me sitting on the edge dipping my toes in!)



In the last day and a half, I've finished a full box of Kleenex, the size of which I usually take 2 months to get through; I'm so congested that I was joking with a fellow-down-with-a-cold co-worker that we should just forget about breathing and grow gills. Now I just have to figure out how to do it.